Pen kits are fairly common and inexpensive (depending on the quality of the pen). You can even buy the "blanks" for all types of material - wood, synthetic, antler/bone. A quick Google search will give you a bunch of links. Some of the websites even give you step-by-step directions on how to do it.

AStat, Really Nice job on the Pen. I have seen the pen kits and often thought of doing what you have done but just keep putting it off. Great Idea, glad you did it. How was it to carve, and what tools did you use?

The trick to doing pens is having the lathe and all the goodies - I have a buddy who's set up. He's done hundreds of pens and was totally psyched when he saw mine.

Hanging out in my buddy's garage I saw the lathe and asked him about it. He told me that turning wood is his hobby - so I gave it a try. I smoothed a square blank so it would be thick enough to carve. Then used a hooked knife to carve the features. That wasn't so easy, because the exotic wood was very hard (most blanks are kiln-dried) and I kept envisioning stitches in my future. I have to admit I didn't put a whole lot of thought into it - so the next one will be done with my Dremel. You also need a large vise - to press the pieces together. The result is what you see.

I know what you mean about Visions of stitches. The Hook knife is one of my Main tools and it has bitten me several times but only once for stitches. Your dremel will do a lot of that work, but some things will Still need to be done with the knife. And the exotic woods Are very hard, but beautiful when finished. Keep up the good work.
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The response is overwhelming - it seems that this could become a great side business. I have no idea what to charge, so I'm hoping TCers could give me an idea. What would you pay for a hand-carved tiki pen?

I would charge $1. Sign me up for 25 pens. Who do I make the check out to?

Just kidding. Those are soooo cool! When you deside on a price, and if you are making those for TCers, please let me know, I would love to have one.
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GREAT looking pens!
I have a tiny suggestion... perhaps keep the area where the pen is gripped smooth or at least free of any deep relief carving, would probably be more comfortable for people like me with cranky hands to use.

as for charging, ok first you need to take into account the raw materials and how much they cost. Then how much do you want to scharge for your time? Think about it like this; if you were getting minimum wage per hour how much would that be? Sometimes you have to charge less than that though, then you have to go by how many you can crank out, like for my fanzines, after all the involved expenses I generally make only about $5 (less if bought with paypal... that darn 89 cent charge). So I have to go with how many I can crank out in say an hour. Still I may have to raise prices in the future; one thing you always want to keep in mind is if the place you are buying your inventory from will raise their prices in the near future; in your case, will the price of the pen kits, or just the parts that make up the pen go up?

I am probably making this sound harder than it is, just go out somewhere and find some kind of equally well crafted novelty pen and see how much they charge, then stack that against your costs of raw supplies. I am sure there are some well crafted novelty pens on the net somewhere, it doesnt have to be tiki just compare the costs.

Alohastation, its always hard to determint the selling price of art. You just have to figure what your costs are and go up from there. You can't base cost on your time spent because that is not a measure of a pieces worth. You should just go with your gut feeling of what the pen is worth and put that amount on it. if it doesn't sell then you have all the neat pens.
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The more you do the more you will know about them
After creating about 25 pens, you will be able to set a price and make money with it. You will know the ins and outs of the pen production and will be the tikipen master and we will All be coming to you to help us with our dinky little pen jobs.
Happyhappyhappy
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